Ben Hardin thought he'd received a strange but relatively simple assignment from Gunnarsson, the owner of an American security consultancy company.  Find out what happened to Adriaan Hendriks, and find out if he has any living relatives.  Hendriks immigrated from South Afrika in the thirties, and that's about all that is known.  When Hardin finds Hank Hendrix someone fires at them, but they get away without ever knowing who shot and why.  And at the moment Hardin brings Hendrikx to Gunnarsson, he's fired.

Hardin has the impression that something was wrong with his assignment, the way Gunnarsson kept it hidden from the rest of the organisation, and certainly with the way he was forced to leave the company.  So he goes to London to look for the other known relative of this Adriaan Hendriks, a certain Dirk Hendriks, who turns out to be relatively easy to find, but he isn't in the country.  His wife Alix is not sure what to think about Hardin's story, which involves an impressive heritage, so she calls her friend Max Stafford, manager of Stafford Security Consultants, Gunnarsson's European competition.

A strange clause in the will of Hendriks'/Hendrix' deceased relative regarding an impressive sum of money that is to be donated to an agricultural research organisation lets Stafford decide to travel to Kenya, together with Hardin.  And in Kenya is just about nothing what it seems.  Stafford's local helpers know just too many people, and they get too much done too easily.  The research organisation is just too well secured, and too little monitored by the directors.  Gunnarsson shows up with Hank Hendrix, but it isn't the same Hank Hardin had found earlier.  And then the kidnapping of the fake Hendrix seems to overthrow plans everywhere...

The book grabs you and doesn't let you go as of the first chapter.  And that's strange since this is not your average spy thriller.  There's virtually no action, hardly a bit of shooting near the end, no chases, little investigations, lots of confusion.  Maybe it's just that: you constantly have the impression something's going to happen, Bagley manages to submerge you into his mistery as if you were part of it.  There's just enough humur to lighten it up, there's just enough suspense to make you postpone putting the book down for one more chapter, the characters have just enough dept to make them credible, and there's a whole lotta story to glue everything together.  A very enjoyable read.